Dear Randy: "Do You Know Anything About the Baker, F. Vaux, of Somerset?"

I get email asking questions, and today's said:

"...Yeovil, Somerset is where I grew up. On a visit there last year, I bought an old Mrs. Beeton’s cookery book dated 1905. In the back was a folded handwritten recipe on paper belonging to F Vaux, Bakers from Ditcheat, Somerset.  The recipe mentions powdered egg, so I am assuming it is from World War II era?  I have seen that you have done research on the Vaux family, and wondered if you had any information about this Baker.  Just curious to know more about them.  I see there are many Vaux family members in South Petherton."

Apparently, my correspondent Googled Vaux and Somerset and found my blog.  Cool - I wish more Vaux cousins would find my blog!  

I surmised that I might find F. Vaux in the 1901 or 1911 England and Wales census records, but didn't know the age of the person.  I checked 1911 first on Findmypast, but there was no F. Vaux that was a baker in that census in Somerset.  In the 1901 England and Wales census, I found the John Vaux family in Shepton Beauchamp, Somerset with a son Fred, age 9, as shown below:

John Vaux, age 51, born in Seavington, is the head of household, and was a grocer and baker.  That is promising.  There is no spouse, only 7 children aged 22 down to 7.  The first four children were born in Seavington, and the last 3 in Shepton Beauchamp.

The next resource I checked was the 1939 Register on Findmypast, and easily found Frederick Vaux residing in Glosterville, Ditcheat, Shepton Mallet R.D.  Here is the entry for his family:

Frederick Vaux was born 18 February 1891 and is a Master Baker and Confectioner in 1939.  His two sons are also Bakers.  Since there are several elderly Feasey people in this household, it is likely that Fred's wife, Harriet E. Vaux, born 13 July 1898, is a Feasey.  I will look for a marriage record, a birth record and a death record:

*  I found no marriage record for a Fred* Vaux marrying a Harriet.
*  I found a baptism record for Frederick Vaux, baptized 29 March 1891 in Shepton Beauchamp, parents John Vaux and Elizabeth Baker.
*  I found a death record for a Frederick Vaux, age 77, died 2nd quarter 1968 in Glocestershire.
*  There are two British Army Service Records for Frederick Vaux of Ilminster, Somerset for a Frederick Vaux.

A John Vaux married an Elizabeth Hutchings in 1873 in Seavington, Somerset, but they may not be the parents of Frederick Vaux,  The census says John Vaux was born in 1850 in Seavington, Somerset.  There are two baptisms for a John Vaux in Seavington - one in 1848 to John and Eliza Vaux, and the other in 1850 to William and Elizabeth Vaux.  More work would be required to determine which couple was the parents.

I looked for more records on Ancestry.com but could not determine any more information.

That's enough for now - the above took 20 minutes to find, and another 40 minutes to write up.  I sent the two images above to my correspondent in case she wants the information.

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Disclosure: I have a complimentary subscription to Findmypast, and have accepted meals and services from Findmypast, as a Findmypast Ambassador. This has not affected my objectivity relative to Findmypast and its products.

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2020/06/dear-randy-do-you-know-anything-about.html

Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver

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Mining the 1939 Register of England & Wales on MyHeritage

As most readers know, I do all of my family tree data entry work in RootsMagic desktop family tree software, and I try to "mine" (meaning to dig out ancestral family information) the available genealogy record collections when I have the opportunity.  I upload my RootsMagic family tree to Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch Family Tree, and Findmypast on an occasional basis.

Ancestry provides Record Hints for several persons in your Ancestry Member Tree every day, unless you change a profile in your tree, and then they provide more Hints for the changed profiles.  But they don't provide every Hint for every profile all at one time.

MyHeritage is the only record provider that looks for Record Matches for all persons in your family tree at once, usually within a month of a new tree being uploaded.  I much prefer that because I can organize my search for records and simplify my source citation creation in RootsMagic - I can use the same master source and just change the citation details.

I knew that MyHeritage had recently added the "1939 Register of England & Wales," and I know that the collection provides relation to head of household, birth dates, residences, marital status, and occupations for persons in the Index.  I have quite a few English-born persons in my RootsMagic tree that were living in 1939, so this is a good opportunity to update their birth information using the MyHeritage 1939 collection.  However, the MyHeritage collection does not provide the record image like Ancestry.com and Findmypast do.

1)  When I opened my MyHeritage tree, I selected "Discoveries" and then "By Source" and then "Record Matches," then I scrolled down to where the "1939 Register of England & Wales" collection was:

The screen above shows me that I have 120 matches in the collection.

2)  I clicked on the orange "Review 120 Matches" button for the collection:

The "pending match" page above provides information for all 120 of my matches, including what I have in my tree (on the left) and the information in the collection (on the right).  It tells me what new information there is in the collection for each match.

3)  I clicked on the first match on my list, and now can see more detail for the record, including all of the indexed information (two screen below) and source material:

Frankly, I really don't think that the actual 1939 Register record has this person's married surname in it...but it shows that for some reason.  The information shown should be what's in the actual record.  That should be corrected, in my humble opinion.

UPDATED:  Reader Bill G. emailed me saying:

"I appreciate the benefit of MyHeritage having all the new records identified instead of the some now, some later in Ancestry.  However Ancestry (and FindMyPast) have actual images of the 1939 records which I find always have some unique info that doesn't appear in indices.

"In the case of the 1939 register for example, you would have seen that Hebditch married name written in green next to the black original writing.  I have also found interesting additional notes, and info etc. in the image that's not in the index.  Plus I always prefer to have the image in my files vs index info when it's available.

"Perhaps a process would be to use MyHeritage to ID the tree names with 1939 connections, then search Ancestry or Find My Past to get to the actual record...  Even if not already identified as hints, they are showing up in searches."

My thanks to Bill for correcting my statement about MyHeritage adding information to the profile that I thought wasn't there.

4)  I clicked on the orange "Confirm Match" button to add information to my MyHeritage tree. 

I can extract the 1939 Register information and save it to the profile in my MyHeritage tree.

5)  I clicked on the "View profile" link on the left side and can see what I have for this profile already.  

As you can see, the added information includes the parents and brother.

6)  I added the 1939 Register information to my RootsMagic tree - as an event for the registry at the address in Exeter, and as a source for the birth date and for the registry event.  I don't have a good model yet for the 1939 Registry, so I used the information that MyHeritage provided in the Census area of the record, and crafted this:

"1939 Register of England & Wales," indexed database, MyHeritage (http://www.myheritage.com), Exeter County Borough, Devon, Schedule 38, ED Letter Code WDBY, TNA Reference RG101/6757B/003/19, Piece 6757B, Item #3, Line 19, Margaret M. Mason entry.

That may be too much information, but a reader could certainly find the record.

I do wish that MyHeritage provided an Evidence Explained quality source citation, but they don't.  They provide the Census information shown above all run together

7)  I did not add the parents and brother to my RootsMagic family tree.  I could, but they are not my ancestors.

Well, that was fun.  119 more to go.  I may not finish them all today.

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I have a complimentary MyHeritage tree and data subscription, and have accepted other material considerations (meals, air travel, etc.) from MyHeritage over the past ten years.

The URL for this post is: https://www.geneamusings.com/2018/05/mining-1939-register-of-england-wales.html

Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Exploring the 1939 Register of England for Richman Cousins

I noted with pleasure that Findmypast recently included the 1939 Register for England in a member's subscription, rather than being pay-per-view.

While I don't have any ancestors residing in England in 1939, I do have many English cousins  who reside there because of my Vaux and Richman 19th century immigrants to the USA.  I added several more generations to my RootsMagic database for these families, including many who were alive in 1939, from correspondence with cousins in England and the USA.

For many of these cousins, I have only an approximate birth year based on the cousin's information.  I found out that many entries in the 1939 Register have a birth date, but not a birth place.  In addition, knowing where they resided in 1939 might be helpful, and knowing their occupation might be interesting.

For instance, my 3rd cousin once removed was Douglas William W. Richman (1901-1985), born and died in Wiltshire, who married Mildred May Chapman (1903-1984), born and died in Wiltshire.

Unfortunately, when I put Douglas Richman into the search field with a 1901 birth date, I received no hits in Wiltshire.  I tried Mildred Richman in the search field and a birth date of 1903:

I chose to use "Name Variants" for the name fields.

I clicked on the "Search" button, and saw the search results:

While there were 93 results, the only Mildred Richman was the first entry, and she resided in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.  I clicked on the blue "Preview" button:

The entry for Mildred M. Richman gives her birth date as 19 Jan 03, and her husband's names William D.W. Richman.  I think this is them - Douglas's name has reversed a first and middle name.

Note the reference number at the bottom of the screen above - this is probably the reference to the file in The National Archives for the original records.

I clicked on the blue "View Original image" button on the screen above, and saw the record page:

From this record, I can see that they resided at 3 Clarendon Gardens, Trowbridge U.D., Wiltshire, England.  Here is a summary of the information for these persons:

Mildred M. Richman:  a Female, date of birth was 18 Jan 03, Married, Occupation is Unpaid Domestic Duties.

William D.W. Richman: a Male, date of birth was 20 Sep 01, Married, Occupation is Maintenance Engineer, Privinder M..

The record transcription said William Richman's date of birth was ? Sep ?, but the record is very clear as 20 Sep 01.

Do you want a source citation?  Here is my effort, using a "Census, U.K./Wales (online images)" template in RootsMagic 7:

1939 Register, Wiltshire, England, Trowbridge, U.D., RG101/7132E/012/17 Letter Code: WRNC, Schedule 152-1, William D.W. Richman entry; digital image, The National Archives, Findmypast Ltd. (http://www.findmypast.com : accessed 24 February 2016).

Next, I wondered "Where did they reside?"  The address was 3 Clarendon Gardens in Trowbridge.  Further down the transcription page is a map:

This map cannot be zoomed in or moved around, but there is a dropdown menu that says "1937-1961 Ordnance Survey 1:25000 Map," and the dropdown menu has a "Present day map" link:

As you can see, the roads around Trowbridge have changed a bit.

Well, that was fun!  The search system is logical and works pretty well.  However, there is no real source citation provided by Findmypast, and there should be for folks who want one.

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The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2016/02/exploring-1939-register-of-england-for.html

Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com